For B2B businesses looking to generate new leads, LinkedIn Dynamic Ads may just be one of the best digital advertising ways. The social media platform has over 500 million members and up to 40% of them use LinkedIn daily. Over 80% of B2B leads come from the platform making it the number one social site for conversions by far:
…And dynamic ads play a big part in that success.
What are LinkedIn Dynamic Ads?
LinkedIn Dynamic Ads are small, personalized ads placed on the right side of a feed, available on desktop only. They can help to generate leads by driving traffic to your website or post-click landing page because of their ability to customize ad creative based on the user’s profile.
LinkedIn Dynamic Ads (desktop):
LinkedIn Dynamic Ads are customized to a specific member using their personal information to attract and engage them. There are three types available:
- Follow Company Ads — used to boost the follower count on your company page and build brand awareness.
- Spotlight Ads — used with a call-to-action (CTA) and can link to a post-click landing page or website (e.g. showcase your product, service, event, etc.). These can also be placed as a custom background as well.
- Content Ads — used to drive content downloads and generate leads. (Currently only available to managed LinkedIn account users.)
Follow Company Ad
Follow Company ad specs:
- Company name: 25 characters maximum including spaces
- Logo: 100 x 100px minimum
- Ad description (above image): maximum 70 characters including spaces
- Ad headline (below image): maximum 50 characters including spaces
- CTA button: choose from visit company, visit jobs, or visit life.
Spotlight Ad
Spotlight Ad specs:
- Company name: 25 characters maximum including spaces, the company’s name is displayed when the user hovers over the company name.
- Logo: 100 x 100px minimum
- Ad description (above image): maximum 70 characters including spaces
- Ad headline (below image): maximum 50 characters including spaces
- CTA button text: maximum 18 characters including spaces
- Optional background image: exactly 300 x 250px (2MB or less). This removes the user profile image and ad description.
Spotlight Ad with background image
Content Ad
Content Ad specs:
- Company name: 25 characters maximum including spaces
- Company logo (optional): 100 x 100px minimum
- Company page follower count (optional): can be switched on or off
- Primary CTA: maximum 75 characters including spaces, or choose from one of three pre-created options.
- Document name: maximum 50 characters including spaces
- Downloadable document: maximum 10mb PDF
- Document preview (optional): maximum 5 preview pages with each preview page size 81 x104px
- Privacy policy terms: maximum 2,000 characters including spaces
In the right column, Dynamic Ads are placed two at a time so you’re only competing with one additional advertiser for user’s attention. Whether you’re promoting a job vacancy, whitepaper download, or company page, LinkedIn Dynamic Text Ads leverage information from user profiles, enabling them to send this information with a click of a button.
For example, if you are promoting a new research report, a user can submit their information by clicking through the ad and downloading on the post-click page.
The 3 primary benefits of Dynamic Ads
Customizing your ads with information from LinkedIn user profiles enables you to build a deeper connection with them. According to LinkedIn, Dynamic Ads have shown to produce 2x the click-through rate of regular display ads and offer three distinct benefits:
Build a closer relationship with your audience
Dynamic Ads capture the audience’s attention in a way that traditional display ads can’t. Each ad features the personal details of a LinkedIn member, including their photo, first name, job title, all of which provide an elevated level of personalization.
Achieve enhanced customization
Once you’ve written the content for your ad, LinkedIn takes care of personalization and auto-translation, so the ad is tailored to every individual user. Data mapping tools can be used for enhanced customization because by adding macros; you can automatically personalize each campaign for every individual user you target.
Meet marketing objectives
Dynamic Ads work at every stage of your marketing funnel, whether you wish to raise brand awareness with Follow Company Ads, drive traffic to boost post-click landing page conversions, or promote an event with Spotlight Ads. Of course, you can A/B test the ads as well for ad optimization in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
How Dynamic Ads compare to other LinkedIn ads
LinkedIn offers several cost-effective advertising options alongside Dynamic Ads.
Sponsored Content
LinkedIn Sponsored Content enables you to promote your content to users outside of your company following. Unlike Dynamic Ads which are desktop only, Sponsored Content can be shown on desktop, mobile, and tablet devices. However, the ad appears on a member’s feed as native advertising — placed in combination with content shared from other users. It appears as an ordinary post but is marked as Sponsored Content.
Sponsored Content Ad with thumbnail image:
Sponsored InMail
Sponsored InMail helps you to deliver a highly personalized message to your audience in a similar way to Dynamic Ads. However, Sponsored InMail delivers more text content to deliver your advertising message.
Unlike Dynamic Ads, Sponsored InMail lets you use LinkedIn’s private messaging to promote your content to recipients. Users don’t need to follow your company page to receive your content in their message inbox either. Furthermore, Sponsored InMail Ads are only delivered to a member’s inbox when the user has been active on the platform, ensuring 100% deliverability.
LinkedIn Text Ads
Just like LinkedIn Dynamic Ads, Text Ads only appear on desktop, however, they can be shown at the top of a page in addition to the right column.
LinkedIn text ad placed at the top of the homepage:
Text Ad at the top and in the right column of a profile page:
LinkedIn Text Ads are effective for driving conversions and promoting offers. You can use a CTA to encourage users to click on your ad, and profile images can engage your audience. Like LinkedIn Dynamic Ads, your text ad can drive traffic to a post-click landing page or website. Additionally, you can use A/B testing for optimization.
LinkedIn Text Ads work similarly to Google Search Network ads by utilizing a pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) bids to control your advertising budget. Simply create your LinkedIn text ad and set a daily budget in LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager.
LinkedIn Dynamic Ads best practices
Keep the following in mind when creating your Dynamic Ad…
Think about your overall objective
If you’re looking to increase brand exposure by driving people to your company page, choose a Follower Ad. If your goal is to increase traffic and conversions, select a Spotlight Ad and feature your product, event, webinar, etc. If your objective is to generate leads, choose a Content Ad. The Campaign Manager in LinkedIn allows you to select your desired Dynamic Ad format and your chosen target audience:
Use visual personalization to capture your audience’s attention
Opting to include a member’s photo, name, or company helps to engage each individual user. There are pre-set templates in the Campaign Manager which automatically ensure your ad contains this information.
Be very specific with your headline and text
Your headline and text should enable a user to clearly understand your message. Notice how the Dynamic Ad below clearly explains the offering:
Use a clear CTA to tell your audience what to do next
The Dynamic Ad below, from CA Technologies, demonstrates a straightforward CTA to download their whitepaper. This helped lead to a 11.3% conversion rate:
Don’t forget the post-click stage
If you’re driving traffic to an external page, ensure your post-click landing page reflects the content on your ad and is optimized for LinkedIn users. Here is a perfect example, first the ad followed by the corresponding post-click landing page:
Test your LinkedIn Dynamic Ad
LinkedIn Campaign Manager allows you to view ad statistics in the performance tab. You can view click-through rates, impressions, leads, followers, and engagement rates, depending on your overall ad objective.
Additionally, you can measure lower funnel ad success by using the Conversion Tracking tool by LinkedIn. A/B testing your dynamic ad allows you to test different headlines, logos, and copy. Ideally, test one variable in each ad to determine how each ad is performing.
You can also test background images and icons as part of your A/B testing process:
Build the perfect LinkedIn ad for your company
Dynamic Ads are superior to traditional display ads because they take advantage of users’ publicly available information to customize the message. Less work for digital advertisers and potentially more conversions as a result.
Don’t stop there, though. Check out the free Instapage Ad Specs Guide because it covers all of the major ad platforms so you can quickly reference ad specs and targeting options for hundreds of ad types.